In which Paul Keating’s pro-Asian policies merge with manufactured pop to create … a really depressing series of failures.

During one of Girlfriends early interviews, a cynical musical journalist asked the girls outright what made them any different from New Kids On The Block. Loau answered “we’ve got tits”, at which point the girls management went into damage control. Loau was gently at first, then much more firmly, reminded of Girlfriends rules. According to Loau, she was reminded not to say tits, bum or any words that indicated Loau knew what sex was, and she was to live in a world of perpetual joy and innocence. It was a reminder to all the girls that Girlfriends image was not to deviate from the squeaky clean, that they were to act as if they didn’t even know what a boyfriend was.

I actually disagree with this post, mostly because it argues that Julia Gillard has a “general” accent. If this was true, she wouldn’t have received so much classist abuse for it. (Note to self: find time to write the massive post about Doctor Who‘s Tegan Jovanka and Julia Gillard and the silencing of women who sound working class.)

But also, I disagree with the premise that Australia doesn’t have regional variations. There is absolutely a Queensland accent, and even an Ipswich accent. Not to mention the famously posh stereotypical accents of Adelaide and also Melbourne’s suburbs like Brighton.

And there are also variations for people with non-English speaking backgrounds. I once worked with a woman who could tell whether a speaker’s family was Greek or Macedonian based on their inflections.

After a dinner of “thanta sauce” and “bum-bum extract,” Luke embarks on a long-winded, jargon-filled explanation to his younger brothers about the Force of Others. Originally discovered by a holy man called the Skywalker, the Force is divided into the good half, “Ashla,” and the “paraforce,” called the Bogan. To prevent people with “less strength” from discovering the Bogan, the Skywalker only taught it to his children, who passed it on to theirs.

Normally No Award and MamaMia prefer to politely ignore each other — which is to say that we pointedly ignore MM and they are unaware of our existence — but they ran Jo Qualmann’s piece on being asexual, and we think that’s pretty great. It’s good to see marginalised voices in the mainstream! Also, Jo is good friends with Liz’s brother, and we are more than happy to bask in her success.

Mr Wilson said he does not support banning burkas, but questioned why some women wear it.

“I do find people walking around with full-length or burkas or hijabs or… I always get the different ones confused… confronting, because it is not something that we are used to seeing in Australia,” he told 612 ABC Brisbane.

“I always wonder and question whether people do it voluntarily.”

He said people were “well within their rights” to wear burkas, but “it doesn’t mean I don’t find it confronting”.

Liz notes: by all means, let’s concern troll about the hijab and its variations, while closing down women’s shelters. That link is from a few months back; I signed a current petition relating to a St Kilda shelter on the weekend, but have managed to forget the link.

(Liz also notes: I am not Muslim, but my stepmother is. She chooses not to wear a hijab for feminist reasons. Her sisters choose to wear it … also for feminist reasons. It’s complicated, and we at No Award aren’t interested in playing at being white saviours.)

Now, Liz is an educated and historically literate woman, and she grew up in a family with a very strong interest in Asian history. Yet it was only last week that she discovered that, for twenty years in the nineteenth century, China was ruled by two dowager empresses — Cixi and Ci’an. It’s the little-known Bitches Get Shit Done Era.

…but seriously, I had never heard of Ci’an until I started reading Jung Chang’s biography of the Empress Dowager Cixi. Which is great, by the way — not just because it’s interesting, but because Chang is a big old Cixi fangirl, and at least once a chapter she starts ranting about traditional historians erasing Cixi or minimising her achievements, or perpetuating myths about how she and Ci’an hated each other, when in fact they were BFFs.

I paraphrase. Slightly.

As a general rule I’m wary of revisionist histories (especially when a lot of the primary sources are in a language I can’t read), but Chang’s work here feels solid. She’s very much writing for a general (and western) audience, but her facts seem reliable. I expect we’ll hear from Stephanie if she’s made any egregious errors.

Anyway, Cixi is brilliant and clever and vastly under-appreciated by history. I have some quibbles with the way Chang writes for people who are entirely ignorant of Chinese culture, and substitutes western concepts for actual translations — like “Praetorian Guard” for what I presume are the imperial guards — but I expect Stephanie will be able to speak at more length on that topic when she eventually reads it. She’s currently, um, “enjoying” some amazingly racist travel writing, so you should send some good thoughts her way, and also vegan cupcakes. She needs them.

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10 thoughts on “I’ll be good to you, linkspam”

There’s a North Queensland accent too 🙂 Plus a range of sentence structures and grammar depending on your background/family. I have a long rant about NAPLAN/school rankings and family background and why the Grammar test is a bad test . . .

Here is today’s racist travelogue sample, which you may have already enjoyed in part on twitter:

“A woman in saffron and green rode by on a black horse. Behind her, bundled up together on the saddle, a child was playing with a motherless lamb; copper posts were clanking, and there was a rooster tied on with a string.

She was also suckling a baby. Her breasts were festooned with necklaces, of gold coins and amulets. Like most nomad women, she wore her wealth.

What, then, are a nomad baby’s first impressions of this world? A swaying nipple and a shower of gold.”

It will not surprise No Award readers to know that my note on this page is “SIGH”

ALSO ALSO I think the real question should be how did Stephanie, with a degree in Chinese Studies, a personal interest in Chinese History, and an especial interest in Chinese ladies of history, have NO IDEA about Ci’an?

Like how Chang’s book is basically the only English popular history about a female Asian monarch — or, okay, an Asian monarch of any gender — and do you know how unfair that is? I love me some Tudor history, but every now and then I want to read more about the amazing queens of Korea or Vietnam!

I would be really interested in reading your analysis of Tegan from an Australian class perspective, because I assume that absolutely nobody at the BBC would have had a clue about the implications that were coming across and all of it would have been Janet Fielding’s acting choices.

It’s interesting, because it’s more the opposite — with her background and career, Tegan should have had a middle class accent, more like Janet Fielding’s natural way of speaking. But JNT wanted her to sound more Australian, by which he meant more working class.

Ooops. And this was JNT supposedly creating a character specifically to appeal to the Australian audience. Although he was the guy who thought Adric would be embraced by nerdy fanboys who would be overjoyed to see an avatar of themselves on screen.

I have no intelligent comment to make except to aww at the really late realisation that you linked to my piece (MamaMia actually contacted me asking for something, so they might not be completely hopeless). Thanks Liz. 🙂